The Wizard of Gotham
by Skysaber
Chapter Two
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I doubt anyone could portray Chris Dee's version of the Gothamites as well as Chris Dee does. The owners of the copywrited material certainly don't. But I will certainly be taking my inspiration from her, to the limit of my understanding anyway.
Frankly, I was never all that interested in the DC universe until I'd started to read Cat Tales.
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Harry had never eaten so well in his young life.
Fruit and food were everywhere, including all of the obvious ones like apples and oranges and cherries (all of which, he noted, were in bloom at the same time as holding fruit in every degree of ripeness, which he thought was odd), plus ones he had no names for. Plants he didn't understand would bend down and waggle fruit in his face, or pluck stalks off of themselves and try to poke it down his nose, until they'd worked out some sort of code together that said something like, "Eat me, please!"
Sweet corn was so sweet when consumed right after being plucked from the stalk that it tasted almost like candy. And, to a boy who'd never gotten any candy, it was simply the sweetest tasting thing there ever was.
Then he'd find carrots uprooting themselves from the ground to inch along behind him, leading little parades of radishes and potatoes and other stuff, waiting for him to sit down so they could wiggle into his lap and signal they wanted to be consumed.
Needless to say, his first weeks in the giant greenhouse were very strange, to say the least. Well fed, though. Very well fed. He couldn't recall being hungry since he got there.
Still, it was a strange environment to adapt to.
It wasn't that he felt unwelcome. No, the plants were very polite and made sure he knew they were grateful for his care. They parted to show the way he was supposed to go before him, and if he ever got lost he could ask and the branches would point out familiar landmarks to him.
And that was the weird point. He was pretty sure most plants didn't go out of their way to tell you anything, or if they had feelings most of them didn't communicate those very well. And wiggling along behind him signaling "Eat me, please!" was just too odd not to be confused about at first.
At last, sitting on a composting toilet while vines drooled all around him, and thinking back to that book on the plane with a talking, hat-wearing cat, Harry had to conclude that maybe what his relatives taught him was normal wasn't normal at all.
Maybe there were talking cats that came to play with lonely kids. Maybe the Dursleys just didn't have things like that happen in their lives because they didn't want them to?
Still, if good things could happen bad ones obviously could too. Just look at what happened to the pretty ballerina lady! So, every night before going to sleep after putting the lights out, Harry crawled into a sheltered little grotto to rest onto a soft bed of moss where some bushes could hide him.
Just in case that awful bat came back.
I mean, this greenhouse could be its hunting grounds, for all Harry knew, and he didn't want to be eaten by a giant, furry bug thingy!
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Poison Ivy was in a foul temper as they finally let her out of Arkham in late January. Two months locked up in there, and Batsy had snagged her when she was at an awkward moment between plant-sitters. Between the break in her greenhouse and the lack of water, all of her more fragile babies were surely dead by now.
Given that this was a Gotham winter, where pollution was as bad as the cold, even her toughest plants would surely be suffering, near dead and incredibly dehydrated if they weren't already hibernating. Even those that survived would be months coming out of the shock!
It was the sort of thing that made a girl want to go on a killing spree. See how the animal infestation of Gotham enjoyed having their homes broken into and children exposed to the cold.
But no, first she had to pay attention to saving whatever of her plants had lived. Vengeance could wait until later. As it was, she'd be all spring repairing the mess and bringing what survived back to a healthy, happy condition. Just like mommy always wanted for her pets.
Already mourning her loss, the redhead returned to the park only to be rather shocked to find her house lights not only on, but the broken pane sealed and her babies still alive. Wondering, she entered to find her plants warm, well watered and fed. Not a dry or withered leaf in sight.
A moment communing with her babies and few mental commands later set her plants to moving, and they snatched her culprit just as the untidy bundle of rags tried to sneak out the back way. So the Mistress of Plants found herself staring at a young boy dressed in dirty, torn up clothes as he hung suspended in the vines before her.
"Hi," the young boy ventured. Not wanting to get into any more trouble for staying in her house, he prattled on trying to escape blame. "I saw you when the scary caped man came and took you away. I've been minding the garden for my aunt for years, and I didn't want any of your pretty plants to die, so I just took some of your glass to fix the window. Then I found some fruit, and not wanting to eat without earning it I came across some bags of fertilizer and a note with a feeding schedual on it, so I followed it, and kept everything watered, and..."
The boy stopped prattling as, at her command, friendly vines lowered him to gently place him upright on the ground in front of her.
Pamela was sporting a barely concealed smile as she lofted an eyebrow for the child. "What is your name, boy?"
"Harry Potter, ma'am," he answered shyly.
"Potter? That's a good name for a good gardener to have." She smiled more fully now, looking the ragged child over. "And you have the absolute perfect color of eyes. I'm pleased to see you took better care of my babies than you did of yourself. It shows the right attitude. But not even I go so far as to wear fertilizer on my clothes."
"I haven't got any others," said the chagrined boy, suddenly recalling that he hadn't washed himself in a couple of months.
The redhead sighed. "Well, I'll not have Batsy taking me in again so early for a kidnapping I didn't do. If I did it, that would be a different matter, but... Where are your parents, child?"
"They died in a car crash," came the mumbled response.
Thinking furiously, Pamela Isley searched her brain, but couldn't come up with any of those she'd caused lately. Good, so she probably wasn't to blame. But she'd probably have to go around the Gotham Rogues to see who was. "Then why aren't you with your relatives?"
From the way the boy shrank in on himself, the answer was obvious even without him saying anything. Either abandoned or a runaway, but certainly abused either way. Well, she wouldn't press him for details. The Bat had put up with her taking in orphans before, and would be forced to do so again. That is, if she decided to keep him, which was still a very big if to her mind.
Thinking for only a moment while gazing about her domain, the woman gave the boy a smile with a touch of cleverness to it. "Very well, it's time for a feeding anyway. Show me how you take care of my babies."
Nodding furiously, Harry scampered off to where the tools were located. The beautious redhead swept along regally at his heels, paying an astonishing amount of close attention to the details of his handling of things. She dealt him a sharp word or two over the issue of weedkiller when he asked her why she didn't have any, but other than that things proceeded very peacefully as she followed him closely, inspecting every step of his daily routine that he'd been developing over the past two months after taking up residence in her hideout, taking care of the various plants there while she was up at Arkham.
There was also an admonishment, although a kindly one, that her gigantic, mutant flytrap was not to be fed its blood mash via thrown handfuls from outside of its easy reach. But Pamela collapsed into giggles when her Ivan (the flytrap had a name?) actually told her it had begun to enjoy that peculiar game of Catch.
An introduction followed that had the frightened boy bearing up manfully as he 'shook tentacles' with Batman's least favorite plant, and listening to Poison Ivy put him on its 'No Eat' list was educational to say the least.
She had more than a few things to say by way of instruction, and a few of interrogation over how various plants had handled the treatment they'd received, but at the end of a few hours Pamela found herself very pleased indeed with the earnest and hardworking little fellow.
That feeding schedual he'd found had been left for a previous plant-sitter, one who hadn't lasted very long, and was not quite up to date, but in the end Pamela found herself quite pleased indeed by how he'd handled things.
After the conclusion of a rather lengthy inspection and interogation, Ivy found herself rather charmed by the little boy in raggedy clothes, besides he took such good care of her babies and wasn't in the least bit arrogant or uncooperative when she corrected him (unlike that French gardener she'd had to have the curling mallow strangle when he absolutely insisted things had to be done his way).
It was quite obvious to her mind that this boy was a promising seedling that chanced to sprout in unhealthy soil. A tender shoot unloved and unrecognized by the barbarians who chanced to own that barren plot of ground. He needed only to be transplanted to a more fertile environment to bloom and grow into a malleable specimen she could mold into something great.
Something Green. Yes, great and green.
Oh, and he had pretty eyes, but that had nothing to do with it.
Harry stood, waiting for her approval (or the stern lecture he was sure that his aunt would've given in her place) when once more a vine lifted the boy up, only this time it simply held him upright while some creepers crawled over every inch of him, measuring him intently before they withdrew and he was placed again on the floor.
"I'll see you after your bath." Ivy informed Harry with a lofty brow (and yet a barely concealed smirk) as some shrubs started dragging him away. A few more words reached him before he got handed off to the water lilies that scrubbed and washed him. "The smell of animal is rather pungent. You must make sure to wash regularly if you are to stay here."
Harry's grin got so wide at that statement of acceptance that he didn't care about the natural soaps squirted all over him as the living sponges at the bottom of the pond began to scrub.
Ten minutes later, pink and cleaner than he'd ever been in his life, the raven haired boy was dropped into some boy's clothes a fern held, clothes that had been delivered by a juniper bush that had only just returned from a clothing store (which was sadly deficient in bright green clothes this time of year - so she'd had to settle for a dark green shirt with brown pants and jacket, which left him looking suspiciously normal, but that couldn't be helped). Then he got treated to the interesting experience of being dressed simultaneously by the limbs of a weeping willow from above and the fronds of a fern below.
Just as a few flowers got done spraying him with pleasant-smelling pollen, the boy got deposited before the lovely redhaired ballerina woman, who had changed her own outfit into some sort of green gown covered in leaves. The long skirt had slit sides so she could move easily, though he didn't notice this at the time.
Harry was happy. He was so pleased. He even had rocket ships on his underpants! He'd never had rocket ship underpants before! (The store was sadly short on boy's underwear with flowers on them, so rocket ships just had to do, as it wasn't going to be cowboys).
Pamela Lillian Isley looked over the boy but did not touch him, finally deeming him presentable, she began to sway towards the exit. "Come along, young Potter. While my plants are perfect for many things, providing protein to a growing young boy is not among their present abilities. So, until I design one that can, you and I are going to be eating out at least once a day. I know the cycles of living things, and you aren't half as healthy as you ought to be. So. as the Mistress of Green, I take it upon myself to be your caretaker until you have properly grown."
Eyes as wide as the smile that nearly split his face, the young boy followed her to where she stopped, by a giant pumpkin vine that was close to the exit. Once again, she smiled for him. "Ah, this one nearly died, in spite of your care. Blasted Bat and his breaking and entering nearly caused the vines to decide to wither in the face of winter."
She waved her hands and the largest of the already giant pumpkins swelled to a truly massive scale, vines uprooting themselves to form a sort of frame holding up the massive squash, as right before Harry's astonished eyes, the plant formed itself into a carriage.
If not for the Dursleys, he would have likened that to a scene out of Cinderella, but his relatives wouldn't allow any of 'that magic rubbish' inside the house - not even for Dudley (who had to watch those movies at a friend's place).
A Dudley who, two months after having last seen Harry, had so enjoyed some parts of his time in juvenile prison that he was even now playing weird object insertion games with his new friends he'd made back in England, getting an infection that would haunt him for months.
Back in Gotham, however, Poison Ivy was fondly gaging the green eyed boy's reaction, which was even better than she'd hoped. Stepping up regally into the coach, she resumed speaking, "I've been trying to do something to go along with Selina's Cat-illac, and the infernal Bat-wagon, but wasn't about to get one of those pollution contraptions. Then I was so afraid this vine wasn't going to make it. If not for you, it wouldn't have... oh, bother."
Young Harry, determined to be helpful as his so-very-recent acceptance was no more firm in his mind than the whims of ever-fickle Dursleys, had taken Pamela's hand, trying to help her into the pumpkin carriage.
Unfortunately for him, Poison Ivy was well known as creating the most deadly toxins in Gotham City, often secreted from her lips and administered with a kiss. But her skin was toxic as well, and though not usually fatal she had been rather stressed earlier on her trip home from Arkham thinking of how so many of her plants must have died. She'd always emitted poisons based on her mood, and she'd been in a killing fury before she'd discovered that a wonderful little boy had saved her precious green friends. However, with said boy in her tub, Pamela had not had a good opportunity to wash off the rather potent poisons she'd secreted while in that gloomy and dangerous mood.
The boy, who hadn't had the best care over his childhood and was still quite weak from years of malnutrition, fell over instantly, and Ivy sadly concluded that he wasn't likely to survive his attempted good deed.
Weighing the pros and cons of using him as plant fertilizer, then dismissing that thought as unworthy of her and that any boy so talented and loyal to the perfectly green realm of her home had to be nursed back to health, Ivy held out a hand and allowed a sarsaparilla to deposit an ivy-decorated syringe within her palm. Bending over the boy's shaking and shuddering form, she injected him with a serum she'd used on Harley Quinn once before, one which had given her an immunity to all toxins and poisons.
In her mind, she excused this maternal moment on him having such beautiful green eyes, and of course for her owing the survival of her babies to him. After all, a humble yet dedicated assistant gardener was hard to find, even more so one whom Ivan was fond of playing Catch with.
As the possibly unique green serum disappeared into his veins, the quaking and shuddering ceased, then Harry was up and bouncing and ready to go moments later, already apologizing for having fainted on her, and by doing so showing just how potent the Queen of Green's knowledge of biochemistry was.
She smiled and said nothing, allowing him to help her mount into her carriage before the vines pulled him in after. Ivy gave an imperial nod and the hanging moss at the entrance parted. Then the doors of her greenhouse rolled back, and the pumpkin carriage rolled out, spinning four hoops of vines like a Texas rodeo man spun a lasso, driving them out into the night of Gotham City.
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Author's Notes:
Again, not much to say.